Dinner in Shanghai that is about ten hours by direct flight from Sweden.
Text and Photo © PO Larsson and CM Cordeiro 2012
Shanghai’s changing cityscape is reminiscent of the changing skyline of Singapore, where every time I visit I find myself looking at a skyline that is augmented in some manner especially in Lujiazui, which also most reminds me of the Singapore quiet in the Central Business District by Raffles Quay by night.
Along the streets at Yuyuan, Shanghai.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2011
Waking up in China’s largest city that is Shanghai, amongst its more than 24 million inhabitants certainly puts a perspective on how much of an impact you might make during a single day in your life when you finally step out the door and make your way around with your errands.
In just about twenty to thirty years, Shanghai as a city has grown at an amazing speed. The skyscrapers seen today along the Huangpu River, The Bund and Lujiazui were non-existent just a stone’s throw back in time, where it would’ve been difficult for most anyone to recognize the landscape and skyline of the central finance district between these decades if you were not at first shown pictures of the landscape from then till now.
The past decade alone has seen a paradigm shift in Shanghai from a city with Communist ideals to one that is cosmopolitan with a global outlook. Much of this is the fruitful result of the Chinese government’s efforts at economic reforms in China beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
If any organization could trace and reflect an aspect of Shanghai’s modern history in global trade and the resulting impact of the Chinese government’s efforts at bringing China and its state-owned enterprises to the global scene, then Baosteel Group Corporation, the second largest steel producer in the world with approximate annual revenues of around USD $21.5 billion would be a good case study to examine. With 45 wholly owned subsidiaries in markets across the world, in countries with as diverse cultures such as Brazil, France, Germany, Russia and in Asian and Southeast Asian countries such as Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore , Baosteel reflects the speed and tenacity at which Chinese organizations are able to make themselves visibly global whilst simultaneously catering to their very demanding and highly competitive domestic market.
Still, amongst the city’s global ambitions supported and run by its busy inhabitants who seem to maneuver through the city via just as many noisy and exuberant vehicles that never cease their honking, you’ll find in Shanghai that some waking hours beckon a certain lull to the senses, and are in effect… quieter than others. And it is in these hours that you can sit, think and breathe the calmer soul of the city as a mist that invites you to contemplate its living as an artfully drawn landscape, one perhaps seen in Chinese watercolour on silk or paper. It is these brief lulling hours of Shanghai, at dawn or just after dusk, that paints a picture of the place both past and present, juxtaposed in front of your very eyes in material form.
Lujiazui by night. In the background, lit blue, the Oriental Pearl Tower.
Text and Photo © K Meeks and CM Cordeiro 2011
When in Shanghai, the last place I expected to find myself exploring come sundown is Lujiazui, the city’s financial district, as the more popular of nightspots would include Xintiandi or even the quieter street of Hengshanlu lined with all sorts of eateries from Turkish and Thai to Hunan cuisine.
IFP 2011 Graduation Dinner, Montjuïc El Xalet.
The IFP 2011, IESE Business School, University of Navarra saw 41 participants from 26 different countries gather in Barcelona for three weeks of intense studies for executive management faculty.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011
The last day of the the International Faculty Program (IFP) at the IESE Business School in Barcelona saw the Class of IFP 2011 gathered for a farewell dinner at Montjuïc El Xalet, a restaurant with a picturesque view of the city of Barcelona!
For three weeks I enjoyed the company of some of the world’s most interesting academics and professionals, from more than 26 countries across the globe.
The Class of IFP 2011 had a broad variety of backgrounds even if the syllabus of the program was specifically designed for faculty members of business schools. The course had a distinct focus of IESE’s brand of case studies as a method of teaching and learning in higher education, in particular with MBAs and EMBAs. The lectures and sessions with various cases proved highly motivating and made for numerous memorable learning experiences.
The two first Swedish ships – we know of – to arrive in America, were the Kalmar Nyckel and Fågel Grip. In Wilmington, Delaware, USA, docks a sailing replica of the Kalmar Nyckel, where the first settlers landed.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011
The Kalmar Nyckel replica is a smaller cousin in design to the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III replica.
We visited the Kalmar Nyckel at what seemed to be at its most quiet and resting period. Beneath the apparent quietness however, were all kinds of repairs and upkeep being done inside and out, with parts of the rigging being indoors undergoing new lacquer treatments. Over the whole area lingered the sweet fragrance of linseed oil and tar.
View from the Green Lift of the Biotech Center, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Photo: C M Cordeiro-Nilsson and PO Larsson © 2011
The Biotech Center in Gothenburg was designed by Per Henrik Johansson at Liljewall Arkitekter ab as a part of the Sahlgrenska Science Park of the city. It is in fact one of my favourite modern buildings in the city of Gothenburg because this building, that houses mostly biotechnology and innovation companies, is to me the very concrete extension of innovative design and architecture.
Since its opening in 2004, it has become today, a star attraction to many of our visitors who come from abroad, of which its most interesting features are reflected in this article in Arkitektur 4:2004 (Pdf file 4.8Mb), in a journal on architecture that describes in greater detail, the Biotech Center project.
Reception.
Tall glass walls, expansive windows and a glass ceiling contributes to the builidng’s incredible lightness of structure, a feature that attracts the attention of most visitors to the building. The glass ceiling also has the function of letting in as much light as possible during the long dark winter days, and during spring and summer, the inside of the building turns into an indoor garden of sorts with what seems like infinite sunlight streaming in through the diverse glass panels.
A bridge that takes people between the two different lift landings.
The names of some of the companies housed at the Biotech Center.
Back entrance.
Sitting in one of the building’s landings with a delegation from the Shanghai University, China.
Group talk.
From L-R: Sherry Zhang of the International Relations Office, Shanghai University; Dr. Cheryl Cordeiro-Nilsson, University of Gothenburg; Professor Zhuang Enping and Professor Hao Jian, Shanghai University.
Dr. Cheryl Cordeiro-Nilsson, with delegates from the Shanghai University.
Professor Zhuang Enping, Shanghai University, China.
Furnished in clean, solid coloured tables and chairs, the building also features several indoor patios or landings that allow for mix and mingle sessions outside its main conference or seminar room that seats about 45 persons.
With a gym, a sauna and a roof top suite that allows for summer barbecues and surround sound movie screenings, I think many of us here in the building are unashamedly looking forward to the upcoming season!
In 2003, launching of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III
Photo © JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2003-2011
My personal involvement in the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III project was so early that I had not myself realized it back then. In the project newspaper GotheborgsPosten that was distributed in 360,000 copies throughout the entire western Sweden in 1996, it was outlined that one of the research objectives that would be targeted was Swedish-Chinese Business Communication. The Professor that in 2003 would arrange for me to receive the Anna Ahrenberg Research Funding Scholarship to help me start a PhD research (graduated in 2009) in doing precisely that, was interviewed. Strange indeed are the paths of life. Today, I go off to work everyday by ferry straight across Wargö Håla, the historic departure point of the Swedish East Indiamen in the western Swedish archipelago. In fact the house in which we live features one of the ship’s actual water provision wells in our very garden.
Currently at work, at the University of Gothenburg School of Executive Education AB, prevalent topics of discussion circle around Swedish-Chinese business relations and the future of work prospects with Sweden’s competitive growing economy that earned acknowledged nods from Swedish leaders, specifically that of its Finance Minister, Anders Borg, of the country being a Nordic tiger economy (ref. Di, DagensPS and Epoch Times). All this showing that the Swedish East Indiaman still has a relevant role to play, more so today than ever in its importance of growing global contacts. Its shared goodwill initially created by the East Indiaman Project is everywhere present.
In the media recently, a passionate discussion has arisen about what to do with the ship, now when its initiating ideas have been completed – the ship built and it has traveled to China and back. What now?
Many suggestions including turning it into a museum, an amusement park and why not – firewood – have come forth. Personally not even at today’s energy prices does the idea of firewood sound very brilliant.
Eventually, the original Founders of the project have chosen to step forth, and in this weekend’s local newspaper GP, have briefly presented their views of how the ship could continue to earn its keep and do much more than that.
The following article were published in GP, in January 22, 2011, as part of the ongoing debate about the future of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III ship.
H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf and H.M. Queen Silvia, disembark the Gotheborg III in Canton, China, 2006.
From the point of view of Anders Wästfelt and the Think Tank Gotheborg, the ship is far from done sailing:
“In view of the past few days defensive debate in the media and our City Council, on the future of the East Indiaman Gotheborg, it is time to lift our eyes beyond the horizon. In the right hands the Götheborg III – our ship – is a regional and national asset with huge potential.
She has great future tasks, functioning as a symbol of our community, an inspiration for continued work and as a source of financial revenues. She is well-built and with proper maintenance, she can sail for another 20-30 years.
The project to build a replica of the 1700s Swedish East Indiaman began in 1992 as a private initiative. It was well thought through and enjoyed the support of international shipbuilding expertise, the best marketing specialists, lawyers, economists, politicians, sinologists, university faculties as well as members of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish Trade Council.”
Breakfast at La Vie En Rose, the Astor House Hotel in Shanghai, along the Bund.
Photo © Yina Huang, P O Larsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2010
Every New Year most people will find themselves writing new resolutions for the year ahead – a healthier year ahead, a more successful year ahead, new goals to be attained or renewed interests in old goals previously unattained – but for me, as 2010 passes and this night welcomes 2011, I can’t help but go back to what has been there for a very long time. A time when I was growing up, of photographs now a natural sepia in family albums.
One such place where time has seemingly stood still, and which now come to mind from my travels in the past year is The Astor House Hotel along the Bund in Shanghai.
Choice of dress for the evening, a gold champagne gown by my good friend and favourite designer Francis Louis Ler of Amor Meus, 36 Purvis Street in Singapore.
J E Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2010
The one thing that strikes you when you land coming into Singapore from the Swedish west coast which is right now experiencing one of its coldest winters in a century at -11 C and several inches of snow, is the wall of humidity and the tropical warmth that surrounds your very being. I was instantly relieved and even reveled in the tropical thunderstorm that greeted me when touching down in Singapore.
But as events go, I was not going to miss Sweden this Christmas because I was just in time for the Swedish Business Association of Singapore (SBAS) to host their annual Julbord and celebration of Saint Lucia.
The Geely Holding Group headquarters in Hangzhou, November 2010
Photo: J E Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC © 2010
It was with great expectations that I went to visit the Geely headquarters in Hangzhou, the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. Ltd, as part of a Swedish delegation from the University of Gothenburg. Geely’s acquisition of the Swedish car manufacturer Volvo with their headquarters in Gothenburg was announced on Monday the 2 August 2010 and with that, the Zhejiang Geely corporation had concluded the largest ever acquisition of a foreign car company in the history of China.
A warm sign at the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group headquarters that welcomed the visit by the Swedish delegation.
Just inside the Geely headquarters entrance.
Having followed the Ford and Geely negotiations as well as could be done in the press, I expected this acquisition to be an important opportunity to study the process of top management knowledge transfer between modern China and the West.
